


Day 9: Respite

by vampirepunks



Series: Blood & Water: Moments from N7 Month [9]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Backstory, Biotics (Mass Effect), Canon-Typical Violence, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Gen, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Renegon (Mass Effect), Shepard Twins (Mass Effect), The Skyllian Blitz, Tumblr Prompt, War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27490471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirepunks/pseuds/vampirepunks
Summary: Jane Shepard finds no respite in shore leave on Elysium. When the colony's capital city is attacked, she doesn't hesitate to act.
Series: Blood & Water: Moments from N7 Month [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000095





	Day 9: Respite

Shore leave isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The bright atmosphere of Elysium’s cities strikes her as a disingenuous representation of the human condition; all the buildings are new and impeccably maintained, the pinnacle of a rising civilization. It’s a great ideal, but it feels otherworldly from the polluted, gang-dominated streets she grew up in. Tenth Street was a prime example of forgotten people in the wake of a spacefaring society. 

Earth cities like San Antonio are mosaics of the interwoven past and future. As technological progression spread, zoning methods left pockets of the city abandoned since the twenty-first century, with the locals unfortunate enough to fall below the poverty line having been thrown to the wayside. The central regions of San Antonio sparkled with neon light and busy streets, bright advertisements and lush landscaping painting the air with hope. It was a paradise… Until you took a wrong turn and the reality struck you in the face, as parents walked their children with wide, fearful eyes, and the gangs fought wars history would forget. 

Jane had learned to love the patchwork world she came from for what it was. It taught her that anything worth having has to be fought for. She and her brother were fifteen when the Lasoya Street Coyotes drove them out of the abandoned restaurant they lived in. They pistol-whipped John, threatened the both of them with death--or worse--if they didn’t get out of their territory. So, they ran, took the chance to flee, and wound up at Maverick Park on Tenth. It was a serene place, with a brick pavilion faded by history over their heads. They were there three nights before the Reds approached them. Refusing to be driven out again, Jane punched one of them in the face and took his stagger as a chance to wrestle his gun away. It was the stupid, reckless decision of a scared teenager, but Lady Luck took it as a cue to smile on them. The man she’d hit turned out to be Weisman. With eyes like a snake, he’d laughed, shouted, “So we have a fighter! Bring them to Paloma, see if she thinks we can use her. Maybe these kids’ll be good for something.” Just like that, they were taken in by a ruthless, tight-knit gang, and earned their colors with time. 

She sees no sign of similar lifestyles developing on Elysium yet. It’s all shining monuments and hard-working colonists, striving for a place in the galaxy. Somehow, it makes her sad. She isn’t like them--she’s little more than a military attack dog, someone who lives for the fight, with no patience for this peace and tranquility. She’s taken time to float around clubs, but they only leave her empty, people’s eyes lacking the same vibrance and desperation of those belonging to the seedy bars she’s drawn to. She’s strolling through the back alley, half considering picking a fight just to sate the boredom and soullessness she feels, when gunfire and screams resonate outside. She rushes out the door to pure chaos; nonhuman forces slaughtering people in the streets, killing in droves. It’s mere moments after the killing starts that the colony’s defense mechanisms are activated, this capital city shielded by tech barriers. 

_Be careful what you wish for,_ John would say. 

She should panic. She should balk in fear and horror. Instead, her blood runs hot in her veins, rage and adrenaline compelling her, a single word, screaming in her soul: _fight._ So she slinks around the corner, keeps her head low, tries to stay out of sight, pulls the knife out of her boot, and takes a deep breath to start thinking logistically. It’s only a matter of time until Alliance forces strike back, but until then, this colony’s defenses won’t last long, if the attackers are smart. She may not understand these people, may not fit in with them, but they’re innocent. She’d never be able to live with it if she cowered to save herself. 

So, she moves quietly through the streets, eyes flitting at all sides, desperately trying not to be caught unarmed. Everything happens in a rush, evading the pirate forces, searching for people that haven’t been caught in the massacre yet. When she finds a band of civilians holed up in a shopping center, she convinces them to fight. She speaks in passion and anger, leads them by a long speech about patriotism, survival, and things worth fighting for. So, they break into an Alliance surplus store, take what they can carry, and it becomes full-on guerilla warfare, the spirit of the fight infecting others along the way, picking up all the forces they can as they clear the streets. The fight is filled with battle cries and tears. Half of her makeshift troops are slain at her sides, and they have to keep fighting. The battle is made up of eighty-seven civilians at its peak, and lasts for nine hours. They leave the dead where they fall. The end of it is the hardest, when they finally reach the city’s northwest corner, at the barrier’s edge, where the pirates are coordinating from. There’s no time to process when the city’s defense mechanism finally fails, and hostiles pour through. Her forces start dying a hell of a lot faster, overwhelmed as Jane screams out orders to seal the breach. It’s a cause that starts looking more impossible by the second, as their own numbers are cut down to a mere thirteen people, including herself. 

Jane can’t accept this defeat, not when they've come so far. Something deep inside snaps. Jane takes a deep, steady breath, and channels her full focus on defending these people. She does it, not with steady determination, but with a shuddering cry, as she promises herself she won’t die like her father, _that she’s better than him,_ because she won’t leave her brother alone in the world. _She will not die here._ She conjures a biotic barrier in her hands, forcing it outward to protect not only herself but her people, too, because in this moment, the remaining twelve lives beside her are the only thing that could ever matter. It’s a feat of biotic ability she’s tried to learn but has never been able to harness before, and likely never will again. Her strength draws deep on grief and the rage of a woman that lost her childhood, a woman that has nothing but a beloved brother and the spirit for war. She barks an order to hold the enemies back, voice weak with the strain. Her vision goes blurry. Her nose bleeds, streaking a furious wet heat down her face. She screams and sobs with the pain and exhaustion of it, but holds fast, a desperate inner cry pleading, _do not let these people die, do not leave Johnny alone._ Deafening gunfire rings out all around. People shout, but she can’t process the words they say. Time loses meaning. 

A hand touches her shoulder, just as she starts to shiver, her barrier flickering weakly. 

“I _can’t,”_ she breathes, her voice hoarse as she falls to her knees. _“I can’t hold it!”_

A hand touches her shoulder, “Shepard you don’t have to! My God, Shepard, they’re retreating!” 

“Look, overhead!” a woman says. 

She gasps, letting her eyes roam upward. High in the sky, enemy ships are destroyed, bathing the skies with flame, tanks being dropped to gun down the remaining ground forces. She sits frozen in awe with the rest of them. 

The stunned silence breaks as a woman titles her “The Red Horseman,” proclaiming her as a divine gift of salvation. Her twelve civilian fighters surround her, cheering the new name, raising their weapons to the sky. 

Shore leave offers no respite because _this_ is what she lives for--the elation that comes after winning an impossible fight. It’s the same feeling she had after a successful ring fight for the Reds, amplified into an ocean of emotion, as her people help her to her feet. She wipes the blood from her face, both batarian and her own. She’ll carry the losses with her every day, but for now… There’s no relief like the one that comes to her through victory. 

**Author's Note:**

> Meh, it's a simplified/summarized version of how I imagine this went down for Jane, but boy, this was a fun one to write. Perhaps one day I'll write a full fic of it, expanding on how exactly she pulled it off.


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